The contract for the first station on the present site was awarded by the Midland Counties Railway to Waterfield and Smith, and was just under £15,000[4] (equivalent to £1,710,700 in 2023).

The station was designed by William Parsons in the Grecian Revival style, with a two-storey main building which was embellished with a central pediment set forward on fluted columns in front.

The new station frontage on London Road remains as a well-preserved late Victorian building, but the interior of the booking hall and the structures on the platforms were reconstructed by Sir Robert McAlpine in 1978.

[9] A commemorative statue of Thomas Cook was placed on the pavement outside the present station in 1991 to mark the first excursions arranged by the travel agency magnate.

Leicester City Council issued plans for the redevelopment of the station and the surrounding area including a total of eight platforms.

There is a footbridge at the northern end of the station giving access to the long-stay car park and Campbell Street.

The station has an office for the British Transport Police and Cash point in the porte-cochere as well as a taxi rank and short-stay drop-off and pick-up area.

Routes run north–south through Leicester on the Midland Main Line, south to Kettering, Bedford, Luton and London; and north to Derby, Nottingham, Lincoln and Sheffield.

Junctions north and south of the station serve the east-west cross country route, going east to Peterborough, Cambridge and Stansted Airport; and west to Nuneaton and Birmingham New Street.

Leicester station is owned by Network Rail and operated under a franchise by East Midlands Railway.

Most services are provided by East Midlands Railway, with CrossCountry operating on the Birmingham to Stansted Airport corridor.

Up until the winter 2008 timetable, the morning southbound The Master Cutler express from Leeds to London St Pancras was an exception although it eventually called here prior to the service ending.

[11] Leicester has had direct services in the past to destinations as varied as Liverpool Lime Street, Manchester Piccadilly, Leeds, York, Scarborough, Norwich, Coventry and Abersytwyth.

Monday to Friday off-peak service patterns as of June 2024 in trains per hour (tph) and trains per day (tpd): East Midlands Railway:[12] CrossCountry:[13] Prospect Leicestershire led plans which aimed to regenerate the city centre area of Leicester,[14] the station was to be incorporated into a new business quarter.

[15] Plans for the station included to rotate the passengers facilities so that they exited into a new open city plaza rather than the current busy ring road.

Renewed plans were released in 2008 for the £150 million redevelopment, promising over 2,800 new jobs in the area due to the new shops and offices which would be created.

[citation needed] Network Rail adopted a Route Utilisation Strategy for freight in 2007[18] which will create a new cross country freight route from Peterborough (East Coast Main Line) to Nuneaton (West Coast Main Line).

Plans to carry out full electrification of the Midland Mainline were paused[20] on 20 July 2017, after being previously announced,[21] commenced,[22] suspended[23] and resumed.

[26] On 23 March 2021, the Transport Select Committee published its sixth report in the Trains fit for the Future enquiry, which called for a rolling programme of electrification.

The most recent study, in 2016, costed the work at up to £175 million and claimed that an additional 206,000 houses would need to be built along the route to generate enough passengers to make the line profitable.